Learn lessons of sorry turf wars: Boundary battles at an end?

Compromise, that invaluable lubricant of progress, may have intervened successfully last night in the long-running dispute over the extension of Cork City’s boundaries.

Compromise, that invaluable lubricant of progress, may have intervened successfully last night in the long-running dispute over the extension of Cork City’s boundaries. City councillors were presented with the assessment of an oversight group’s view of the best possible outcome. If city councillors accept these recommendations and if, in time, their peers in the county agree then this sorry episode, an inevitable consequence of urban expansion, can be brought to a close. And not before time — the indecision and infighting must have had a negative impact on the region’s image.

The knock-and-drag offers many lessons but maybe the most relevant one is that unless we prepare to manage change then something like regular and chaotic turf wars are inevitable. The last boundary extension for Cork City took place in 1965 — Seán Lemass was taoiseach. The city has grown constantly since and has been bursting at the seams for many years yet what should be a simple exercise in the administrative evolution of a city and its hinterland has taken more than half a century. Many, many attempts failed.